


a rose bride

by mizael



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Utena, F/F, Physical Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-27 11:19:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,888
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7616065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizael/pseuds/mizael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Rin smiles, it is hollow, and Serena feels her chest clench.</p><blockquote>
  <p>
    <i>Let go of me... take my revolution!</i>
  </p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	a rose bride

**Author's Note:**

> AHAHA this was something i wrote in an hour so dont expect quality in fact it's pretty rushed djfhkjskldf
> 
> i heard all of revolutionary girl utena is now on youtube for free and i cried? it's such a good anime, it's a classic  
> i decided i want to write serena/rin within utena because lesbians are my weakness
> 
> this is... a play-by-play of the script of the first two episodes, except done in small scenes because i couldn't be bothered to write everything

i.

 

_Let's live heroically, let's live with style!_

 

 

 

ii.

 

_Once upon a time, there was a princess who was very sad, for her mother and father had died. Before this princess appeared a travelling prince on a white horse. His appearance gallant and his smile gentle, the prince enveloped the princess in the scent of roses and said:_

_“Little one, bearing up alone in such deep sorrow, lose not your strength or nobility, even when you grow up. As a token of this day, take this.”_

_On her finger, the prince had given the princess a ring with a rose seal._

_“This ring will let us meet again one day.”_

_Was the ring the prince gave her an engagement ring?_

_Anyway, that was all well and good, but the princess was so impressed by the prince that she decided to become a prince herself!_

_But was that such a good idea?_

 

 

 

iii.

 

It starts by accident, like all stories in fate. Serena gets into a fight—a duel—with an older classman to protect a friend. Her name is Yuzu Hiiragi, her best friend, her self-proclaimed girlfriend, her self-proclaimed lover. Yuzu showers her in affection like any teenaged girl in love, but Serena does not reciprocate.

But she doesn’t deny it, either.

The name of the upperclassman is Dennis Macfield, and he is the head of the fencing club. Yuzu had confessed to him, calligraphy written on flower-scented paper, with daisies and lavenders, and perfectly drawn hearts.

_In my dreams, I dance with you._

Dennis Macfield had sneered and posted her confession to the bulletin board for the world to see, and Serena snarled at him, all teeth and hostility.

_How dare you do that to Yuzu? Do you have no shame? I want a duel with you!_

_Are you the new challenger? Then, we’ll duel in the forest behind the school at dusk._

Serena, armed with only a bamboo practice sword, had found an ornate white gate in the forest behind the school. There, the rose seal ring on her finger had opened the secret gate, and Serena ascended, confused but still certain, to the arena at the top of the spiral staircase behind the doors. A floating castle greeted her, upside down, hanging, as if waiting to fall.

_What is that?_

_An illusion._

But regardless, she had lunged forward at dusk, determined to take the grin off of Dennis Macfield’s face for the girl he had thrown away like trash. _For Yuzu,_ she’d thought and said, and did.

The flower on his breast falls in tune with the ringing of the church bells.

 _The first one to knock the rose off of each other wins,_ and Serena is the victor. The petals scatter to the ground, orange and crumpled.

“No! How could you—” his face is distorted, seething, screaming with anger. “You’re just a no one! This duel was supposed to be mine! The Rose Bride is supposed to be mine!”

Serena had left him there in hysteria, and threw away her broken practice sword.

_A man who cannot treat a woman like a human being should not be shown mercy._

“Good evening,” at the entrance to the arena, she had been accosted by a girl with seafoam colored hair and the dullest golden eyes. Serena knows her: she is Dennis Macfield’s girlfriend. Earlier that day, he had slapped her. “My name is Rin, and I am the Rose Bride.”

Dennis Macfield had said something about that, about the brides of roses.

“As the winner of that duel,” Rin had said, smiling, as if her own autonomy and sense of worth were nonexistent. “I now belong to you.”

 

 

 

iv.

 

Serena has a single bedroom in the dorms, but when she returns home that day, Rin’s name is tacked on next to hers.

_Rin Himemiya._

“Good evening, Miss Serena,” she says again, with the brightest smile. She is dressed in housewife whites, with a bandana to hold back her hair, and a spotless apron draped over her body. “Please excuse me, I haven’t finished cleaning yet.”

Serena’s room, which had been nothing less than a mess when she had left it this morning to go to classes, is now spotless.

“What are you doing here?” asks Serena, uneasy.

“I am the Rose Bride, and I belong to you,” repeats Rin without a hint of hesitation. She goes back to cleaning the desks in front of the bunk bed, as if her appearance in some stranger’s dorm room were normal. “As we are now engaged, we share a room.”

“E-Engaged?!”

“Yes,” says Rin. “You won the duel against Dennis Macfield at dusk. I belong to whomever wins.”

“But,” Serena feels her tongue tie. “What kind of system is that? Don’t you have any free will? You belong to yourself, don’t you?”

Rin stays silent.

“You do, don’t you?” Serena asks again.

Rin had smiled, as if finding amusement in Serena’s struggle, and hummed an approval. “Of course. It is as you say.”

 

 

 

v.

 

“Don’t you have any friends, Rin?” asks Serena, leaning on her elbows on the dining room table. The dorm had always only been her, and her alone. Yuzu had said it was haunted, once, but Serena never believed her.

Rin is new, but she is not. Her smiles always seem like she sees beyond the present. As if only Serena is in her vision.

“Of course I do, Miss Serena,” says Rin, cutting a fine cube of steak. “We are engaged, and so you are my friend.”

“But what about _other_ friends?”

Rin tilts her head, blinking once. “But who else would I need besides you?”

“That’s—”

Serena sighs, and lets the subject drop. Rin goes back to cutting her steak into tinier pieces.

There is a lull in the conversation afterward, one Serena breaks with another sigh, and holds her left hand out to observe the ring on her finger.

“Why did this ring open the door in the forest?”

“It is a Rose Seal, Miss Serena,” Rin switches their plates so that the perfectly diced pieces of steak are on Serena’s side. “When you bear a Rose Seal, it means you are a Duelist, and that means other Duelists will come and challenge you for possession of the Rose Bride. That is to say, me.”

“What? Don’t you have a problem with being passed around like this?”

“I am the Rose Bride,” Rin says simply, as if that answers all of Serena’s questions (later, Serena thinks, it does).

“So people will keep challenging me as long as I… have you?”

“Of course.”

Serena purses her lips, and stares balefully at the ring on her finger.

 

 

 

vi.

 

Dennis Macfield shows up after dinner, grinding teeth, when Serena is washing dishes in the kitchen and Rin has gone outside to tend to the flowers. He lays his hands on her, and shakes her fiercely with fire in his eyes.

“What about that promise we made?!” he shouts in her face. “We are in love!”

“It is a promise we made while we were still engaged,” says Rin, nonchalantly, like Dennis Macfield is something akin to a fly to her. “Because we’re no longer engaged, the promise no longer holds.”

“You belong to me!”

“I belong to Miss Serena.”

Dennis Macfield slaps her across the face, and Rin tumbles to the floor, bruised cheek in hand.

“How dare you—”

“Oi! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Serena catches his wrist before he can lay another hand on Rin, the fire burning much more brightly in her eyes. “Leave Rin alone! She’s not yours to hurt whenever you please! She’s not even yours!”

“ _Serena_ ,” Dennis Macfield says her name like there is venom on his tongue. “I underestimated you in our duel yesterday. I request a rematch.”

“No way in hell! Leave me—and Rin—alone!”

“You don’t understand the importance of the Rose Bride,” and here, Dennis Macfield turns smug. “If left with you, she’d go to waste. Give her back to me.”

Serena thinks about rose seals, and rose brides, and the intrusion of Rin in her dorm, and the future duels she’d have to go through just for the sake of some girl she barely knows. She thinks, and relents.

“Fine, I’ll have a rematch with you tomorrow. Same place, same time.”

When Dennis Macfield leaves, satisfied, Serena turns back around to face Rin.

“I thought you didn’t want to duel anymore?” asks Rin.

“I don’t,” says Serena. “That’s why I’m going to purposefully lose the duel tomorrow.”

Rin had smiled, again, as if not at all caring that she would be going back to Dennis Macfield, or that she would be passed around like an object. “Do as you wish, Miss Serena.”

 

 

 

vii.

 

_The one who wields the Rose Bride shall inherit the power to bring revolution to the world._

 

 

 

viii.

 

Serena meets Dennis Macfield atop the spiral staircase behind the ornate white gates in the forest again. The upside down castle greets her, along with Rin, in a red ball gown and a golden tiara. A rose bride.

“I’ll defeat you this time,” Dennis Macfield says, and Serena lets him gloat.

She is going to lose, after all.

Rin places the roses on their chests, orange like yesterday’s dusky sky. _The first one to knock the rose off of each other wins._

Dennis Macfield is the first person to lunge, this time, and Serena thinks about staying put to let his rapier graze her breast and the flower upon it. The duel would be over and done with in seconds, and Rin would be out of her hair. All this Rose Bride business—gone.

Instead, she dodges to the left, hearing her blood rush in her ears, the flow of adrenaline in her body, and brings up her own rapier to parry.

_Clang!_

_Ah, I was supposed to lose,_ Serena thinks, pushing away from Dennis Macfield and creating some distance between them. _I still can._

Dennis Macfield lunges, again, throwing the full weight of his body towards her. Serena steps back, again, and parries, again. Their swords skid against each other, creating a ringing noise of metal, and Serena thrusts her arm out to immediately disarm him.

_What am I doing?_

If she loses this duel, she can go back to her regular life.

_But if Rin goes back with him, he’d just mistreat her again._

Her heart clenches at the thought, and Rin’s plastic smiles appear in her mind. Serena grits her teeth, and lunges this time.

_Damn it!_

The orange petals fall, again, in time with the church bells in the distance.

Dennis Macfield drops to his knees.

His rose is ruined, and Serena’s is still intact.

Rin claps for her. “Congratulations, Miss Serena!” she walks over and takes her place by Serena’s side, as if she is meant to be there. “I thought you said you were going to lose?”

“I…” Serena’s mouth feels dry. She spares a glance at Dennis Macfield on the floor. “I don’t know. My body reacted.”

“You will be stuck with me now, until someone bests you in a duel.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s… fine.”

Rin smiles, and this time it is glad.

 

 

 

ix.

 

 _And even if the two of us shall be separated,_ _  
_ _I swear to you—I’ll change the world!_

**Author's Note:**

> i think besides dennis as saionji, i had yuuri as touga, and yuuya as miki. and ruri was jury.  
> i haven't really given the au too much thought besides what i needed to write this
> 
> also!  
> will smith poses at the comment box


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